I was contacted by a family in Ashland Pa. that does clean outs of houses for a local landlord who has a lot of properties. He buys properties from the sheriff sales and then fixes them and rents them out. When someone moves out of one of his properties, they go and do the clean-out and cleanup and show the place to prospective renters. They know that I burn coal in my stoker and heat all our water and the house with a Bucket A Day. So whenever they find coal in a basement and no coal appliance, they call me and I go and get it. Up till now it has been a couple of buckets of rice or pea coal here and there but yesterday was different.

They told me it was a lot of coal so I took 10 buckets this time. When I walked into the old coal bunker I was looking at about 1/2 ton of stove coal and no coal furnace, boiler, or stove in sight. I could see the old pad where a large furnace had been and the coal loading hatch had been closed up with concrete block. It took two trips and 22 bucket loads up 7 steps, down 6 steps and into my Subaru Forrester. I am sore today from all the trips but we now have enough coal for our Bucket A Day to heat our house and all the hot water we could use and the cost was 10 and change for lunch at McD's and about $10 gas. If I use 35 pounds a bucket on average times 22 buckets comes to 770 pounds of coal for the hauling. That 770 pounds of stove coal broken up should last me at least one month to six weeks in my Bucket a Day. I currently have the oil boiler disconnected and the Bucket a Day is piped in series with the oil boiler and it is currently heating the house.

At the current price I am paying at the old UAE site that would have cost me $65. It cost me $20 to get it so I figure I saved 45 bucks.

Just thinking about the shovel,lift and carry routine brings thoughts of the immense work it took by men that built the coal industry back in the heyday of coal. Humble appreciation here. Happy for you about the nice score. Mike

These basement mines are fun. I recently bought a stove and the lady said I had to take the coal. Usually thee is 4-500 pounds in the basement. This load amounted to 10-12 tons of old blue dot coal she had bought back in the 60'S. We borrowed a 4 wheel dump trailer and filled it three times. The cellar was huge and had a ramp so we just used wheel barrels and loaded up. I don't need fuel for about 5 years. Happy days.

stovehospital wrote:These basement mines are fun. I recently bought a stove and the lady said I had to take the coal. Usually thee is 4-500 pounds in the basement. This load amounted to 10-12 tons of old blue dot coal she had bought back in the 60'S. We borrowed a 4 wheel dump trailer and filled it three times. The cellar was huge and had a ramp so we just used wheel barrels and loaded up. I don't need fuel for about 5 years. Happy days.

... up in these parts of the country we'd grab that coal and *censored* the stove!